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‘No, it wasn’t. There were seven different types of hair and skin samples recovered. How could you have them all dismissed?’
He arches a brow, perhaps surprised by my knowledge of the case.
‘I kept up,’ I explain with a shrug.
‘Why?’
‘Your client—’ I can’t help the note of disgust that colours the word ‘—is a high-profile businessman who was accused of brutally murdering an eighteen-year-old. Everyone was watching.’
He nods. ‘You seem particularly interested.’
‘Yeah.’ And I link my fingers behind my back now, so keen is my need to touch him. ‘It’s the kind of case that locks my career aspirations firmly into place.’ I can’t help it. I sway a little closer. ‘If I’d been prosecuting that case, you wouldn’t have won.’
His look is one of surprise but I think I see admiration in the depths of his eyes, too. I wonder if he knows how much I mean it.
‘You’re on, Miss Amorelli.’
‘I’m...on?’
‘Yeah.’ The challenge in his eyes is palpable. ‘Come back to my place and prosecute me. Let me see what you’ve got.’
My heart kerthunks. My stomach rolls. My blood boils. ‘You mean...to your place tonight?’
He nods slowly. ‘I mean right now.’
I’m on a precipice. It’s madness. Utter madness. Then again, we’ve already crossed that line. We’re in the danger zone. Are there shades of specificity within it? Are there degrees of risk? Or is it just a big, blaring Stop sign we should heed—but won’t?
CHAPTER FIVE
I DON’T WANT to talk about the Donovan case. I don’t even want to think of it. I’m not grateful to it on any level.
Except one.
Olivia is here, in the living room of my London place, but she’s all business and I’m most definitely not. The city shimmers behind her, the view from the floor-to-ceiling windows of my Canary Wharf penthouse showcasing the modern heart of this ancient city. And Olivia framed by it is the cherry on top.
‘Did you know that she would have left for Australia two days later?’
She drags me back to
earth. I nod stiffly.
Olivia’s expression is one of hollowed-out disbelief. ‘There is such evil in the world.’
We both know what she means. There is evil in the world and I enable it. I, and people like me. She’s not the first person to lay such an accusation at my feet, and I tell myself I’m no more bothered by her silent condemnation than usual.
‘What were you doing when you were that age?’ She lifts her enormous blue eyes to my face and I have the strangest sense that her reprobation is a physical force, a cold one. Defiance stirs inside me. Idealism is fine, but it doesn’t last very long in the real world. This, I know for a fact.
‘I was doing my Bachelor’s.’
Olivia’s searching eyes don’t leave my face. ‘She should have had the chance to live her life.’
‘Yes.’ I don’t argue that point—why the hell would I? ‘I had no ability to save her.’
‘But the next Samara Jones? The next woman Donovan does this to?’
Maybe this was a mistake. I used her interest in the case to get her back here but, fuck it, I don’t need to be cross-examined. ‘So you’d prefer to have a legal system relying solely on the work and accusations of the police?’
‘No, of course not.’
